If he were safe, I should feel comparatively happy; happiness, in its full extent, I never can hope to enjoy; but if he were only safe--if he were only safe, my dear Mrs.Brown! I know that he is hunted like a beast of prey, and under such circumstances as disturb and distract the country, how can he escape ?" The kind-hearted lady consoled her as well as she could; but, in fact, her grounds for consolation were so slender that her arguments only amounted to those general observations which, commonplace as they are, we are in the habit of hearing from day to day.

Helen was too high-minded to shed tears, but Mrs.Brown could plainly perceive the depth of her emotion, and feel the extent of wrhat she suffered.
We shall not detail at further length the conversation of the other ladies--if ladies they can be called; nor that of the gentlemen, after they entered the drawing-room.

Sir Robert Whitecraft attempted to enter into conversation with Helen, but found himself firmly and decidedly repulsed.

In point of fact, some of the gentlemen were not in a state to grace a drawing-room, and in a short time they took their leave and retired.
CHAPTEE XII .-- Sir Robert Meets a Brother Sportsman -- Draws his Nets, but Catches Nothing.
"'Tis conscience that makes cowards of us all," said Shakespeare, with that wonderful wisdom which enlightens his glorious pages; and, in fact, Sir Robert Whitecraft, in his own person, fully corroborated the truth of the poet's apophthegm.

The man, besides, was naturally a coward; and when to this we add the consciousness of his persecutions and cruelties, and his apprehensions from the revenge of Reilly--the destruction of whose property, without any authority from Government for the act, he felt himself guilty of--the reader may understand the nature and extent of his terrors on his way home.